ITV4 ToB Coverage

Is anyone else having their coverage ruined by Hugh Porter and Rob Hayles' "commentary"?
Surely being to identify the riders is a basic requirement of a commentator? Hugh knows nothing about road cycling, Rob does but is unable to string a lucid sentence together.

I'm delighted at the level of coverage we've seen on free to air channels this year. All the grand tours, Olympics, the town centre crit series. It's been fantastic and hopefully the broadcasters will make their decisions a bit sooner next season. ITV in particular show literally nothing else worth watching but their sports coverage other than football generally stands up well.

Hugh Porter is not the best especially when covering road racing, but it's not an easy job. We've heard quite a few different commentators and summarisers across the different channels over the course of the season. Hopefully someone like Rob Hayles, Chris Boardman or Brian Smith is taking this opportunity to learn the ropes and we will see some "new blood" taking the mic over the next few years, assuming we continue to be blessed with so much coverage.

Today Josh Edmonson came in with the leading bunch. He is a fantastic GB U23 talent set to ride in the worlds team. He is currently 19th on GC.

Does he get a mention? No, does he get a mention when they show the GC riders, No. They show that Downing is down on GC and how Cav is now down and even Wiggins, which is to be expected, BUT nothing about a great ride Josh is doing!

I stumbled across this thread after having winced every time a rider from "Eskadull Eskadee" was mentioned. I thought Liggett was bad with the names but he's got some serious competition here. They should take pride in their work and bother to familiarise themselves with the riders' and team names.

It looks like they are re-recording parts of the commentary for the highlights programme. They didn't know who had finished second during the live coverage today, was distinctly embarrassing. Lo and behold, in the highlights they did!

Don't feel too guilty, no doubt he'll be back for the worlds. They were on BBC last year, I presume it's the same again. Better stock up on the beers, because everyone's in different kit and there's loads of randoms riding it's going to be even more difficult to tell who's who.

No matter how bad they are they CANNOT be as cringingly awful as Dan Atherton on the Cycle Show thing the other week... after his 728th "well, err, yeah, well, you know" I just gave up. I know these guys are amazing bike riders 1st and not journos, but if they can't string a sentence together on the phone when the producer is setting up the program, don't bloody interview them. Its just... ARGGHHH!

One thing is for sure: I'm going to humming that glorious little ditty they play over the Tour of Britain graphics before and after each ad break for months to come. Its artistry is in the great tradition of Western classic music, picking up where the Romantic composers of the 18th and 19th centuries left off. I mean, just marvel at its structure and tonal range:

Der-der der-der der-der der-derrrr

Sublime!

I am of, course, being sarcastic. I am not mental. What it is is the answer to the question, posed to a sound engineer the night before the coverage started, "What tune can we use that won't cost us anything in rights payments?"

P.S. I agree completely with the above comments about Hugh Porter. Dreadful. Simply dreadful. Rob Hayles, however, is getting better.

P.P.S. To the positivity police, like issacforce, this is clearly a thread for complaints. What harm is that doing you? Sure, give your counter opinion, but don't accuse people who fail to share your rose-tinted view of the world of having no life. If more people complained, or rather more people listened to the dissenting opinions already being voiced, the world would be in a lot less of a sorry state than it currently is.